Masters of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace (27 page)

Of course, none of this was happening in a vacuum. Tymnet was well aware of intrusions into the system, and had been ever since the day months ago when Southwestern Bell noticed John and Julio on their switches. Tymnet knew that intrusions into its system were not uncommon. Tymnet was biding its time.

Even if Tymnet were ignorant of the intrusions, Chris and Scott called security administrators every day. The Comsec crew knew all about MOD's doings, even got a glimpse of where they were going when they raided MODNET and found some how-to-hack-Tymnet files.

"These guys are all over you, " he says. The Tymnet guy seems very interested.

Chris says they can work out a deal. "Well, you know, you guys are so wide open. We're going to have to go to our clients and say, 'Your links to Tymnet are a weakness. '"

The Tymnet official tries to dissuade Chris from making those calls, and promises that Tymnet is already working to patch the holes.

"Oh no, you're not, " says Chris. "We know exactly how weak you are and here's proof. " And then he faxes the Tymnet guy some of the files Comsec got from MODNET.

That convinces the Tymnet official to make a deal. In exchange for Comsec's silence, he offers Chris and Scott a user ID

to make free phone calls through Tymnet.

The Texans accept it and use the ID to call European chat systems where they gab with hackers. That was part of their job, gathering information on how hackers work.

The network user ID is t. cds01, which stands for Tymnet Comsec data security number 1. Way cool.

Chris and Scott also devoted a lot of time to tracking MOD's forays through Tymnet hey, it's a living

and called the

Tymnet official pretty often just to say, look what MOD is doing now. Comsec was determined to crush the MOD boys.

Any way possible. They wanted to hurt them. It was all about business, they told people. It was bad for business whenever MOD made Comsec look silly.

Like the time when John posted Scott Chasin's mom's credit history where everyone could read it, right on an electronic bulletin board that thousands of hackers log in to. The credit report listed Scott's mom's home phone number and address, as well as the phone numbers and addresses of some of her neighbors. John also posted some sexual comments about Scott's mom, for good measure.

Right at the top of the record, it said that the information came from Information America, a system the MOD boys reached through Tymnet.

Scott didn't like to think about what his mom would say if she ever heard about this incident.

Chris didn't like to think about what Comsec's clients would say.

It was definitely bad for business, Chris said.

More calls ensued from Texas to Tymnet.

The Texans were starting to make pests of themselves, though, and the Tymnet security department was starting to dread the calls. Wouldn't you? It was never good news.

Soon the Texans were connected with another security officer, a senior investigator with Tymnet named Dale Drew.

Drew had once run a bulletin board of his own, using the handle The Dictator. The Dictator had been an underground informant in Operation Sundevil. All the MOD boys had heard the rumors in the underground that Tymnet was hiring The Dictator because of his intimate knowledge of hackers' habits.

In this case, however, he knew whenever the MOD boys were in his system simply because they taunted him. They couldn't help it. Maybe because he used to run a BBS, they thought he was an ex-hacker. Maybe they thought that made him a player in a game called Computer Intrusion. Maybe because The Dictator was an underground informant for Operation Sundevil they declared a free-for-all. Some game. In any case, Dale Drew would win if he kept the MOD boys out. They'd win if they got in. All good fun.

The MOD boys believed that Dale Drew was logging in to electronic bulletin boards anonymously, trying to insinuate himself into MOD, trying to get information about just how much the hackers knew about how Tymnet works. In any event, the MOD boys were retaliating by telling Dale Drew that they could read his electronic mail. They told him they could read his memos to his bosses. They even told him they could read the new passwords he used to try to secure the Tymnet system from them. They were trying to drive him crazy.

The MOD boys believed that Dale Drew, in return, was gunning for them. They believed that Dale Drew was creating new passwords for the Tymnet system that referred to MOD specifically. One morning on the phone, John and Julio talked about the Dale Drew situation:

"What a moron, " says Julio.

John asks Julio to give him Dale Drew's password.

Julio says the password has been changed, so he goes to look it up. Julio tells John he knows at least one new Tymnet password (though not necessarily Drew's password). The password is "P-H-I-B-star-S-U-X exclamation point, " Julio reads off.

PHIB*SUX!

John thinks about this.

"Phibersux, " he says.

"Yeah, " Julio says.

"Phibersux. "

"Yeah. "

John can't believe it. Phibersux. It sure sounded to him like Tymnet was playing along. What a strange game.

It is the freshest thing Julio has ever seen, and he can't take his eyes off the TV screen. What did the announcer call it? A skycar.

For a moment, Julio loses himself in its two-seated splendor. For an instant, he's no longer a kid sitting in front of cable TV in the Bronx, watching an episode of "Beyond Tomorrow" on the Discovery Channel. The California-born skycar has just been unveiled at the Essen Motor Show in Germany, after twenty-five years of development. Julio imagines himself in the pilot's seat as the skycar zips past on the screen. For an instant, he doesn't hear the mice in the kitchen. He only hears the roar of the engines as the skycar lifts off vertically, like a rocket. He sees himself, twenty thousand feet in the air, guiding the two-seat car-size airplane wherever he wants to go. And Julio wanted to go a lot of places. He'd been to Peru with his mother, which was pretty fresh, too.

But can you imagine the possibilities? Anywhere you wanted to go. It was like hacking into Tymnet, punching a couple of numbers, a couple of letters, and you got to go to a computer in Canada or something. You were in Canada. Or were you? It didn't seem that way to Julio. You were just in another computer. You were still in the Bronx. But in a skycar, you could really go to Canada if you wanted. And when you got there, you could slowly lower it down into a tight parking space.

And it would be so awesome.

Yeah, right. Where was Julio going to get the money?

He didn't even have the money to buy a damn pair of shoes. His mom was out of work, so she wasn't buying him any, either. Julio's eighteenth birthday was coming up this week, but he didn't expect any presents, let alone a skycar.

It was funny how things work. Here you were, obsessing about a tiny airplane that would take you to the stars, wondering how you'd ever get that kind of money, when the phone rings. And opportunity comes looking for you.

The MOD cowboys have ridden where no one else has ever gone before in cyberspace, and they've brought back tales of the riches they've seen. A lot of people could put MOD's knowledge to profitable use. It was only natural, of course, that word got around. And it was only natural that people would want to pay to learn how to get some of those riches for themselves.

Of course, offering a hacker money for information was a rather delicate proposition. It was one thing to joke around about selling computer information. It was another thing altogether to actually do it.

For starters, you had to be sure you were making the offer to a receptive audience. No way would anybody offer Mark a penny for anything. He would look at you as if you were some kind of moron. He didn't sell what he knew. If he liked you, he told you what he knew, free. If Mark didn't like you, well, he'd let you know it.

And Paul was no good. He hadn't even been hacking into Tymnet, and even if he had been, he wouldn't sell information, either, because that would contradict the hacker ethic that he believes so fervently. And Eli? He didn't know enough to sell anything. Besides, he'd never replaced his computer after the raids.

No, if you wanted to approach the Masters of Deception, you had to do it carefully. You had to make the right move on the right guys. On the hungry guys. If you wanted to approach MOD, use a middleman who was familiar with the players, somebody who knew the situation.

Somebody like Alfredo.

And some guy named Morty has been persistently bugging Alfredo, calling him all the time, asking him to broker the deal.

Morty has money.

Alfredo knew who to approach. He knew, for instance, that Julio had been telling people that he was pulling confidential credit information for a private investigator. Who knew if that was true? But the fact that Julio was saying it said something about him, didn't it?

Alfredo became Morty's go-between. It happened in late November of 1991. It was as easy as this: Alfredo calls Julio at about two o'clock on a Monday afternoon. Julio's already on his other phone line, chatting with a friend about getting together later to hang out (no MODster does homework after school, so there's a lot of free time to fill). Julio puts his friend on hold to answer the phone.

"Julio, " Alfredo says.

"Yeah?"

"Anyway, listen. "

"What?"

"This Morty, yo man, I went to his house; he's fucking punk, " Alfredo says. "This guy got money. "

"Yeah, I know. Parmaster already told me all about this guy, " Julio says.

"Oh yeah? What'd he say?"

"He said this guy is like, he's like one of you; he like goes into your money-making schemes, " Julio says.

"Yeah, but they work. "

"Yeah, I know. I mean, I already heard about it. Like Par already told me he could set me up with this guy to make like thousands. I was just, I was like, uh, whatever you say, because I don't go for that stuff. " Cool-playing Julio.

"He wants to talk to you, " Alfredo says. "He told me... let me talk to someone in MOD, but you can even be the middleman. You know what he wants to buy?"

"Yeah. I know exactly

plane tickets, right?"

"No. "

"Oh? What?" Julio asks.

"He wants to buy an Information America account. "

So here was the deal, then. Morty Rosenfeld needed an Information America account so that he could pull up credit histories. That way, he could get people's credit card numbers. What would he do with the credit card numbers? Morty wasn't saying.

Morty was no stranger to buying and selling credit information. In fact, the past summer the feds had charged Morty with selling a password to > the credit-records company Credit Bureau Index to somebody who'd used it to obtain credit card numbers that were used to order electronics equipment.

Morty has been into the hacking scene for about five years; he'd gotten his start at age fifteen as a member of some gang called Force Hackers. Morty now has a crazy-ass plan to build and sell his own version of IBM personal computers. The Rosenfeld 1000SX! The ultimate hacker's box! All he needed to do was come up with a way to buy lots of computer parts, components that he would fit together to create the machines.

Morty lives over in Coney Island. In fact, Parmaster is staying with him. Well, actually, Parmaster was staying with him, until the authorities caught up with the fugitive sleeping on a fold-away bed in Morty's living room. Parmaster had been arrested about ten days ago. The feds told Parmaster they wanted to ask him some new questions. Over the past couple of months, TRW had reported unauthorized intrusions into credit files, and it seemed that the unknown intruder had routinely checked the credit report of Parmaster's mom.

Parmaster's arrest hasn't slowed down Morty, though.

Julio is intrigued by the possibilities of working with Morty. Maybe he was feeling sorry for himself about his birthday and no money. He doesn't let Alf know any of this, of course.

He puts Alf on hold. This is where the negotiations start to get pretty complicated, as Julio switches back and forth between Alfredo and his friend on the other phone line. This is how Julio firms up the deal. Watch him work. The feds do.

He's good.

Julio switches over to the line with his friend, and says, "You won't believe who called me up.

"Alfredo, " Julio confirms. "Yo, he got dough up the butt now.... You want to make some money today?"

"How?" asks his friend.

"Remember those Info Am accounts that I was pulling for that P. I. guy?"

"Yeah. "

"Okay, this guy wants to buy one off of me for four hundred. "

"Alfredo?"

"Not Alfredo. Come on, " Julio says. Wake up.

"Tell him to shut the fuck up. And he'll give you four hundred dollars for one... ?" Julio's friend is incredulous.

"Yeah, for an Info America account, " Julio says.

"Oh my God. "

Julio puts his friend on hold and switches back to Alfredo.

Julio's playing the convince-me game: "I don't want to do anything with this guy. "

"Oh, you don't?" asks Alfredo.

"No, I don't think so. "

"Why not?"

"Because like, I don't like dealing with this, and like... I've already been offered it by like many other people, and I, you know, why do it with him when I could have done it with like a million other people?" says Julio.

"Well, you can do it through me, " Alfredo says. "That's one good part. "

"What's that? That's not good. "

"No one can even see you. He won't even have your phone number, " Alfredo says. "He won't know who it is that gave it to me or anything... I can probably get him to go up to five hundred. "

Julio mulls this over, then says finally, "If he comes up here, then I'll think about it. "

"I can make him go up there. "

"Today, though?"

"Probably. I can have him drive me up, " Alfredo says.

"Oh, he's got a car?"

"He has access to one. "

"Hold on, " Julio says.

Julio switches back to the other line, where his friend has been waiting patiently for news of the negotiations. Julio's way ahead of Alfredo on this one; he knows nobody is seriously planning to drive up to the Bronx to make the deal. To his friend, Julio says, "You want to go down there?"